MOEBIUS MEMORY
You know, sometimes, unscrupulous persons will try to use Moebius Syndrome--or perhaps any physical difference--against you.  But don't let it faze you.  You can win out in the end.  My story:  I teach at the college level.  So several years ago a student of mine, having failed my class, suddenly e-mailed me a week or so after the semester had ended, wanting to challenge the grade received.  Why?  The student said that, why, throughout the semester, she simply could not understand me.  (Moebius Syndrome of course usually means that adults who have it have a slight speech impediment, and that certainly applies to me; though the vast majority of people claim to have no difficulty in understanding me).

Hmmm.  Well, via e-mail I recounted to the student all the grades she'd received, her attendance record for the class, and how we'd arrived at her grade.  But she and her father were determined to challenge her grade, come what may, and they wound up going through all the different steps and levels of the appeals process, eventually taking their appeal to the vice-chancellor of the university.

But, well...this student had problems, though.  Her grades throughout the semester had been very consistent (consistently bad, that is).  She'd asked me for help--for how she could study better and improve how she was doing on tests, and I'd sent her a long e-mail with tips about halfway through the semester.  She had never, at any point during the course, said anything at all about not being able to understand me, about that having that anything to do with how she was doing in the course.  Not a thing.  Oh, and...I took attendance for the class every time it met.  And the student had missed class close to 50% of the time.  She missed a ton of class.  No wonder she didn't do well.

I wasn't going to change her grade.  And the powers that be at the university completely agreed with me.  It was really just a desperate attempt, arrived at through prejudice and ignorance, to escape the consequences of one's actions.  It didn't work.

It reminds us that we with physical differences have to deal with prejudice sometimes, too.  But it can be overcome.  And others, who don't share our difference, still can be made to see the light on this and can gain awareness, too.

Today's thought of the day is one the student in question above probably needed to take to heart way back when:

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man
who can't read them." -Mark Twain